On a July evening, a month later, Cathcart and a great roll of architects'
paper arrived on the Robeson porch. For an hour Juliet looked and
listened, while Anthony, as he had promised, said not a word to bias her
decision. Cathcart laid before her plans for a new house which were--even
Anthony could but admit to himself beyond praise. From every
standpoint--the artistic, the domestic, the practical, even the
economical, so far as the modern architect understands the meaning of the
word--the plans were ideal. Juliet studied them absorbedly, showing
plainly her appreciation of them.
"It would be a beautiful home," she said at length. "I can think of
nothing more perfect than such a house."
Cathcart looked triumphant. Without glancing at Anthony he produced
another set of plans.
"Just to please myself, Mrs. Robeson," he announced, "I have spent some
interesting hours in trying to show what could be done with this old
house, should any one care to lay out a reasonable sum upon it. Frankly,
old houses never repay much expenditure of money, yet there is a certain
satisfaction in working out the details of restoration and improvement
which makes interesting study. Purely as a matter of that sort I have
fancied such extensions as these."
He laid the plans before her. Juliet looked, bent over them, cried out
with delight, and called upon Anthony to join her.
"Oh, Mr. Cathcart," she said eagerly, "before you proved yourself an
exceedingly fine architect; but now you show yourself a master. To make
this of the old house--why, it's far the higher art."
Anthony glanced, laughing, across at Cathcart, whose face had fallen so
pronouncedly that Juliet would have seen it if she had been observing. But
she was too absorbed in the new plans.
"If we could do this," she was saying, "it would satisfy my best ideals of
a permanent home."
"But, my dear Mrs. Robeson," stammered the man of castles, "consider the
location--the neighbourhood--the rural character of the surroundings."
"I do," she answered, still studying the plans. "I love them all--and the
old home most of all. Ever since I knew"--how had she known? they
wondered--"that a change of houses was a possible thing for us I have been
homesick in anticipation of a change I couldn't bear to think of. Yet I
wondered if we ought to go. But if you can make this of the old home----"
She lifted to her husband an enthusiastic face. His eyes met hers in a
long look in which each read deep into the mind of the other. Then Anthony
Robeson, like a man who hears precisely what he most wants to hear, turned
smiling to Cathcart.
"I think you've lost, Steve," he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good Fiction Worth Reading.
A series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field
of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and
diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest.
* * * * *
WINDSOR CASTLE. A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII, Catharine
of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth, Cloth. 12mo. with
four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.
"Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII., Catharine, and Anne
Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal," although a well-loved monarch, was none too
good a one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and unwarrantable
acts, none was more discreditable than his divorce from Catharine, and
his marriage to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was as
brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting maid on the Queen,
attracted him, and Anne Boleyn was forced to the block to make room
for her successor. This romance is one of extreme interest to all
readers.
HORSESHOE ROBINSON. A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina in
1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
Among the old favorites in the field of what is known as historical
fiction, there are none which appeal to a larger number of Americans
than Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the only story which
depicts with fidelity to the facts the heroic efforts of the colonists
in South Carolina to defend their homes against the brutal oppression
of the British under such leaders as Cornwallis and Tarleton.
The reader is charmed with the story of love which forms the thread of
the tale, and then impressed with the wealth of detail concerning
those times. The picture of the manifold sufferings of the people, is
never overdrawn, but painted faithfully and honestly by one who spared
neither time nor labor in his efforts to present in this charming love
story all that price in blood and tears which the Carolinians paid as
their share in the winning of the republic.
Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work which should be
found on every book-shelf, not only because it is a most entertaining
story, but because of the wealth of valuable information concerning
the colonists which it contains. That it has been brought out once
more, well illustrated, is something which will give pleasure to
thousands who have long desired an opportunity to read the story
again, and to the many who have tried vainly in these latter days to
procure a copy that they might read it for the first time.
THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. A story of the Coast of Maine. By Harriet
Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.
Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island" is ever new: a book
filled with delicate fancies, such as seemingly array themselves anew
each time one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken mirror
all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of Orr's Island" and
straightway comes "the heavy, hollow moan of the surf on the beach,
like the wild angry howl of some savage animal."
Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life, named Mara, which
came into this world under the very shadow of the Death angel's wings,
without having an intense desire to know how the premature bud
blossomed? Again and again one lingers over the descriptions of the
character of that baby boy Moses, who came through the tempest, amid
the angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's breast.
There is no more faithful portrayal of New England life than that
which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The Pearl of Orr's Island."
* * * * *
For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 52-58 Duane St., New York.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good Fiction Worth Reading.
A series of romances containing several of the old favorites in the field
of historical fiction, replete with powerful romances of love and
diplomacy that excel in thrilling and absorbing interest.
* * * * *
GUY FAWKES. A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth.
Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.
The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow up Parliament, the
King and his Counsellors. James of Scotland, then King of England, was
weak-minded and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme of
extorting money from the people by imposing taxes on the Catholics. In
their natural resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold spirits
concluded to overthrow the government. Finally the plotters were
arrested, and the King put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other
prisoners with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs through the
entire romance.
THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER. A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio
Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit of the Border." The
main thread of the story has to do with the work of the Moravian
missionaries in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is given
details of the frontier life of those hardy pioneers who broke the
wilderness for the planting of this great nation. Chief among these,
as a matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, one of the most peculiar, and
at the same time the most admirable of all the brave men who spent
their lives battling with the savage foe, that others might dwell in
comparative security.
Details of the establishment and destruction of the Moravian "Village
of Peace" are given at some length, and with minute description. The
efforts to Christianize the Indians are described as they never have
been before, and the author has depicted the characters of the leaders
of the several Indian tribes with great care, which of itself will be
of interest to the student.
By no means least among the charms of the story are the vivid
word-pictures of the thrilling adventures, and the intense paintings
of the beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken forests.
It is the spirit of the frontier which is described, and one can by
it, perhaps, the better understand why men, and women, too, willingly
braved every privation and danger that the westward progress of the
star of empire might be the more certain and rapid. A love story,
simple and tender, runs through the book.
RICHELIEU. A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P. R.
James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis, Price,
$1.00,
In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance, "Richelieu," and was
recognized at once as one of the masters of the craft.
In this book he laid the story during those later days of the great
cardinal's life, when his power was beginning to wane, but while it
was yet sufficiently strong to permit now and then of volcanic
outbursts which overwhelmed foes and carried friends to the topmost
wave of prosperity. One of the most striking portions of the story is
that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; the method of conducting criminal
cases, and the political trickery resorted to by royal favorites,
affording a better insight into the statecraft of that day than can be
had even by an exhaustive study of history. It is a powerful romance
of love and diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and absorbing
interest has never been excelled.
For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the
publishers, A. L. BURT COMPANY, 52-58 Duane St., New York.